The present invention relates to a file editing apparatus, a file editing method and a file editing program, and specifically relates to such a file editing apparatus, a file editing method and a file editing program, each of which is to be employed for editing the XPS (XML Paper Specification) file.
In recent years, there have been increasingly proliferated in the market various kinds of printing apparatuses, such as a printer, a digital multi-functional apparatus, etc., (hereinafter, referred to as an image forming apparatus as a general term for each of them). When the image forming apparatus is employed as the network printer to implement the printing operation, at first, the concerned document is created by using the application program installed in advance in the host apparatus coupled to the network, and then, the created document is converted to the print data in the format of the Page Description Language (hereinafter, also referred to as the PDL, for simplicity) by employing the printer driver installed in advance in the host apparatus. Successively, the host apparatus transmits the concerned print data to the image forming apparatus through the network, while the image forming apparatus parses the received print data to implement the printing operations.
It is already known an application program for creating a document is such the application program that is operated on the basis of a standard called the XPS for describing the document in the form of the XML (Extensible Markup Language). Further, a document file created on the basis of the XPS (hereinafter, referred to as an XPS file) is possible to be printed without converting the file into the PDL print data (direct printing). Accordingly, in recent years, such the image forming apparatuses that can also handle the XPS file have been provided in the market. In this connection, the details of the XPS are disclosed in the “XML Paper Specification Version 1.0” being available on the web site (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/xpsspec.mspx).
When the user intends to change the contents of the document to be printed in the abovementioned printing mode, it is necessary for the user to edit the document file by using the application program installed in the host apparatus. However, since the XPS is established on the premise that the document, which is once created on the XPS, will not be edited again, none of the editing tools, such as an application program for editing the XPS file, etc., are provided from the Microsoft (Registered Trade Mark) that has originally drawn up the specification of the XPS or each of the ISVs (Independent Software Vendor). Accordingly, there has been a problem that it is impossible for the user to implement the operation for editing the XPS file.
Further, even if a kind of editing tool were available, the XPS file should be edited at the host apparatus side. For this reason, in order to edit the XPS file stored in the image forming apparatus, etc., which is located outside the host apparatus, the user should download the concerned XPS file into the host apparatus from the image forming apparatus. Then, after the operations for editing the XPS file are completed by using the editing tool, it is again necessary for the user to upload the edited XPS file into the image forming apparatus concerned. Therefore, there has been a problem that it is virtually impossible for the user to edit the XPS file easily and conveniently.
Accordingly, in the abovementioned editing mode in which the XPS file should be downloaded into the host apparatus from the image forming apparatus, since it is impossible for plural operators to edit a single XPS file at a time, the modified parts, which are respectively edited by the plural operators, should be put together at the final stage of the editing operation, or the plural operators should sequentially perform the editing operations of the respectively allotted parts one operator to another operator. Therefore, even in the abovementioned case, there has been another problem that it is virtually impossible for the plural operators to edit the XPS file easily and conveniently as a whole.